DaRIS/Mediaflux at The Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit

by Dr. Neil Killeen and Dr. Brad Moffat

The Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit at Parkville (part of the National Imaging Facility) operates state of the art imaging systems in the form of Siemens PET/CT and 7-Tesla MR scanners. These systems image a diverse range of subject material including humans, anatomical samples and minerals. 

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Figure - A demonstration of the powerful static magnetic field in the 7T MR scanner (the metal bulldog clip is on the end of a chain).

A primary focus is on human neurological disease and the unit is closely engaged in clinical research projects that may lead to new therapies. The Unit places emphasis on being strongly engaged with the research community to enable the best use of its systems. A key part of this is an effective means of managing and delivering data to research teams.  

At the heart of the Unit’s data operations is the DaRIS (Distributed and Reflective Informatics System) data management capability.  DaRIS has been developed in collaboration with Arcitecta, Monash University and the University of Queensland.  DaRIS is a rich set of Mediaflux plugins (including a web-based portal).  It’s particular niche is for the handling of bio-medical imaging data for research projects, although it can be used more broadly.

DaRIS receives data directly from imaging scanners.  It operates in the dual role of providing the Unit with a comprehensive archive as well as providing researchers with convenient access to their data.  Distributed research teams access their data from DaRIS and deposit it in compute platforms or run integrated workflows to analyze it. 

The Imaging Unit’s DaRIS system utilises many of Mediaflux’s extensible framework characteristics with a DICOM engine that matches the DaRIS data model, a DICOM client for on-sending data to other DICOM servers, sinks to which (big) data can be deposited (e.g. scp and owncloud), and inter-operability with FileMakerPro servers (ensuring that critical meta-data are synchronized and accurate).  DaRIS also supports a RESTful API as well as the service interfaces.

The diagram shows the busy deployment at Parkville (there is a similar setup at Monash Biomedical Imaging [MBI]).  The instruments (MBC Imaging Unit, other NIF, Royal Children’s Hospital and MBI) can send data to the appropriate DaRIS system (e.g. Parkville for parkville precinct people and MBI for Monash precinct people). The deployment utilises other national infrastructure including RDSI storage, NeCTAR National Servers Program Virtual Machine, fast networks, HPC compute platforms, and ANDS for meta-data harvesting to RDA.

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DaRIS is deployed at a number of facilities and platforms around Australia (e.g. the National Imaging Facility). For more information, see the DaRIS wiki or find the code on github.

DaRIS is now available more broadly to the Victorian community via a central VicNode service. If you are interested in using this, or operating your own DaRIS, please contact VicNode (http://www.vicnode.org.au).

For more information about the Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit  see http://www.neuroscience.unimelb.edu.au/content/melbourne-brain-centre-imaging-unit and also this newsletter article on the Unit - http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=360e08c4bfc022c47854240f1&id=11d155162a

Integrated clinical care with Mediaflux/CAReHR

How these systems are crafting better health & health services for refugees & immigrants. 

Prof Beverley-Ann Biggs and collaborators in the University of Melbourne Department of Medicine and the Royal Melbourne Hospital identified the need for a multi-site, web-based clinical information management system for patients from a refugee-like background, who often have multiple and complex health problems compounded by poor language and literacy skills. 

Arcitecta collaborated with the the University to develop the initial version, which then attracted Government funding for development of the Refugee Health Clinical Hub to assist clinicians with improving the health outcomes of recently arrived immigrants and refugees in Victoria. Important elements of this system are Arcitecta’s Mediaflux data operating system and their Clinical Audit Research electronic Health Record (CAReHR).  

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Screenshot of the Immigrant Health Hub website

This system offers an integrated model of care by providing point-of-care decision support for clinicians, creating a database of de-identified population data to allow evaluation of service delivery, and to implement and monitor evidence based health care. It also facilitates linkages with cdmNet for easy sharing of documentation with the patient’s General Practitioner. This system is now in regular clinical use in Immigrant Health Clinics at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Royal Children’s Hospital, and Barwon Health. 

Following its use in immigrant health, CAReHR is now being deployed in The Royal Melbourne Hospital Victorian Infectious Disease Service Outpatient clinics to improve the clinical management of  patients with infectious diseases, including TB and HIV/AIDS, and in the Pathway to Good Health Project to improve the wellbeing of children and young people in out-of-home care. 

CAReHR provides:
- an electronic health record that can easily be configured by clinicians according to patient group and emerging clinical issues;
- computerised clinical notes, patient care summaries and pathology requests and,
- one-click creation of patient care summaries (for GPs) and patient medical records (for records management).

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CAReHR services both clinical and research needs within the one system, removing the need to build separate systems. E.g. the moment a clinician creates a new disease template it will be available (in de-identified form) for authorised researchers to use. A major aim of implementing the system in the Royal Melbourne Hospital Refugee Health Clinic was to permit best practice evaluation and clinical research, with the ultimate goal of better health and health services for recently arrived refugees and immigrants. This aim is being achieved and extended to other health contexts.

Additional reading about this work can be found in these articles:

http://www.ipaaleadershipawards.org.au/awards/service-delivery-award/melbourne-health/

http://www.pulseitmagazine.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1634:collaboration-through-technology-for-people-of-refugee-background&catid=16:australian-ehealth&Itemid=328

http://www.arcitecta.com/Products/ForeHealth   

Mediaflux at the University of Melbourne

by Andy Tseng

Mediaflux is a Data Operating System that has been developed by Arcitecta to meet the specific needs of researchers. Through Mediaflux’s web-based Desktop application, a flexible user interface is provided for accessing and managing a variety of files including documents, images, audio files, video files, web content and specialised datasets.

The University of Melbourne and Arcitecta are collaborating to deliver Mediaflux-based data management solutions to the University’s research community. Arcitecta is supplying a managed service to underpin these systems to ensure the very diverse capabilities of Mediaflux are delivered to users in a way that makes sense for their research and helps them achieve excellent research outcomes.

Here is one story describing how Mediaflux is being used by researchers at the university.

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Ten to Men (The Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health)

Ten to Men is an Australia-wide study of the health and lifestyles of a large group of Australian males aged between 10 and 55 years. The first of its kind, the study will follow participants over time and provide an important resource for improving the health of Australian men and boys. Funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health, this study, commissioned under the Federal Government’s 2010 National Male Health Policy, is being undertaken by The Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, at the University of Melbourne.

Arcitecta worked with the University of Melbourne to develop a respondent management system (using Mediaflux) for the study, accommodating data from over 16,000 participants, with the capability to manage a range of future study activities. With Mediaflux, the Ten to Men study team can now log participants’ contact details and contact events, as well as link individuals with other individuals and to households, and retrieve PDF scan files of documents associated with participants and households described in the system.  

The processes utilise Mediaflux’s robust security and auditing capabilities, allowing the history of data changes, particularly to participant status and address changes, to be readily identified.

If you’d like to learn more about the Mediaflux capability and how it can help with your research, please contact the data management team at Research Platform Services, the University of Melbourne by emailing me at <andy.tseng@unimelb.edu.au

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